A Therapist’s wake up call about stress, burnout, self care. Why mental health professionals must prioritize their own healing to avoid compassion fatigue.

For nearly 30 years, I’ve sat with anxiety, trauma, grief, panic, and relationship heartbreak.
I teach nervous systems for a living — how stress rewires the body, how chronic overwhelm changes hormones, immune function, sleep, and mood.

And then my own body finally looked at me and said,
“Cool story, Laurie. Now pay attention.”

After years of constant stress, autoimmune flares, major medical events, hospitalizations, and thyroid and parathyroid surgery, I learned the hard way what the research has been saying all along:

Chronic stress doesn’t just make us tired.
It changes our biology.

Therapist Burnout Is a Nervous System Injury

Front-line therapists are walking stress containers.

We absorb stories of abuse, suicide, addiction, betrayal, grief, racism, and shame — and then go home and try to be functional humans, partners, parents, friends, and business owners.

Over time, that load shows up as:

Exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix
Brain fog and memory problems
Autoimmune flares
Thyroid and hormone issues
GI problems
Anxiety that feels “out of nowhere”
A deep, bone-level sense of being fried

You are not broken.
You are over stressed.

What Finally Changed for Me

I didn’t fix my health by “trying harder.”

I fixed it by doing the thing therapists hate most:

Taking my own damn advice.

That meant:

Actually resting instead of “earning” rest
Protecting my schedule like it mattered
Letting go of being the hero
Moving my body for regulation, not punishment
Eating like my nervous system mattered
Saying no,  without a 10-minute apology
Treating stress as a medical issue, not a character flaw

And here’s the kicker:
My work got better when I got better.

Self-Care for Therapists Is Nervous System Care

Bubble baths are fine, massages help, positive affirmations (don’t get me started:-(.

But real self-care for therapists looks like:

Boundaries
Predictable rhythms
Repair after rupture
Community
Movement
Meaning

It’s not indulgent.
It’s ethical.

Because burned-out therapists don’t do great therapy — no matter how many certifications they have.

A Letter to My Fellow Therapists in the Carolinas

If you’re tired in a way sleep doesn’t touch…
If your body is whispering (or screaming)…
If you’re quietly wondering how long you can keep doing this…

Please hear this:

You don’t have to wait for a health crisis to take yourself seriously.

Your nervous system matters.
Your body matters.
Your life outside the therapy room matters.

And you deserve the same compassion you give so freely to everyone else.

If you’re a therapist in South Carolina looking for support for anxiety, burnout, imposter syndrome, or the quiet exhaustion of caring,  I’m here.

Not as a guru.
Not as a fixer.
But as someone who has walked this road and isn’t afraid to walk it with you.

P.S. My sweet co-therapist, Lola, the pocket Pitty, pictured above, is often better at this than I am.